Lawyering Up, Garden Notes, Team Norway

July is for reading, walking first thing in the morning, watering in the evening, making salad and sandwiches for dinner, complaining about the heat...and watching the World Cup.

We are now solidly Team Norway and have been practicing rowing with the team after every win! We loved the Tartan Army, and I have indulged in watching reels of international football (aka soccer) fans experiencing American food staples. I personally have never been to a Waffle House, but it seems to be a real winner with our visitors!

When not watching soccer or baseball (the Yankees are slumping but the Rockies are better than last year...not the worst team in both leagues), I've been reading:

Open and Shut (Andy Carpenter #1), by David Rosenfelt - My JASNA friend, Pam, recommended David Rosenfelt's Andy Carpenter lawyer series since she knows how much I enjoy the Lincoln Lawyer books by Michael Connelly. So, I read the first in the series, Open and Shut, and enjoyed it a lot. Andy is a flippant, self-effacing, sarcastic defense attorney who, like Mickey Haller, takes his job seriously even though that means taking a lot of flak from law enforcement, prosecutors, family, etc. Andy's best friend and confidant is his golden retriever, Tara. Everyone needs a best friend like Tara.

In this first book, Andy's father, a renowned judge, just before he died asked Andy to take on the appeal of a death row inmate that he had passed sentence on years ago. Andy knows that the appeal and resulting new trial will not exonerate the inmate of the murder he was convicted for--it is an open and shut case...or is it? Of course, it turns out not to be and therein lies the basic story, with lots of other juicy tangents such as why did Andy's father accepted a huge check 20+ years ago and that he never used. Why does everyone in a photo from 20 years ago that Andy finds in his father's things deny they were in the photo? Why does Andy's estranged wife Nicole show up out of the blue and insist they try to reconcile?

The book was light on tension, laugh out loud funny at times, with interesting courtroom stuff, and no truly scary (i.e., protagonist is about to die) scenes. I will definitely be reading more in this series.

The Night Fire, by Michael Connelly - This was a perfect Michael Connelly mystery as it was a Venn diagram of his best characters. Renee Ballard is the LAPD detective working the night shift. She loops in Harry Bosch, retired from LAPD but still itching to work, and he loops in Mickey Haller, his half-brother and defense lawyer. I just love this universe and how the various characters interact, with each contributing key elements to the overall story. 

As with Open and Shut, the main story thread of The Night Fire involves a 20-year-old murder, this one unsolved. I love how Renee and Harry focus on the cold cases--which seems to be a story theme these days. That's where the Thursday Murder Club finds their cases to work on as well. We have lots of interesting angles with loads of LA details--someone needs to make a list of all the places Renee, Harry, and Mickey have lunch and/or dinner. Reading these books always makes me hungry for diner food!

Garden Notes

I picked my first tomato and first zucchini, and the onions are doing great. It's been so hot, I'm not sure if we will have many peas but still hopeful. The native garden is being overrun with non-native aggressive weeds, so I've had to do some clearing out so the native flowers have room to thrive.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. 

Mama Finch built another nest in the wreath on the front porch, laid three more eggs, and is convinced her family will be safe this time. We moved the chairs so that the predator that got them last time has to come up with a different plan of attack.

TV Notes

Our daughter is visiting from CA this week (in order to go to Twelfth Night with us tonight at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival) and insisted we watch The Sheep Detectives last night with her on Prime.

What a fun movie. Hugh Jackman as Gary the shepherd was wonderful, as was Emma Thompson as the lawyer. The actors who voiced the sheep were marvelous, with my favorite being Brett Goldstein (of Ted Lasso and Shrinking) who was both Ronnie and Reggie, the head-butting rams ("Are we lambs or rams?"). 

A thoroughly enjoyable movie, especially for those of us who love mysteries as the movie really plays into the all the mystery novel tropes.

Hope you are all enjoying July and finding wonderful books that take you on fantastic journeys.

Two Mysteries: Kate Shackleton and Mrs. Blossom

Happy February! 

The Super Bowl was fun, and we enjoyed seeing the Seahawks beat the Patriots since the latter kept the Broncos out of the big show. The commercials were mostly lame--I just cannot get excited about AI and was super-disappointed that Matthew Broderick used his Ferris Bueller persona to encourage companies to use AI to do the work real people need and can do better. I also loathe the ads that encourage people to gamble. The best commercial was the Dunkin one with stand-ins for all our favorite TV characters from days gone by. Fun. I may have to go to Dunkin to show that the ad worked!

The Olympics are fun, although it was heartbreaking to see Lindsey Vonn crash. Those winter sports are, on average, so much more dangerous than the summer ones.

Mysteries

Based on Constance's review on Staircase Wit, I read and enjoyed Death Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman. Our heroine, Muriel Blossom, was an assistant to Lippman's main detective, Tess Monaghan, and is now on a vacation in France where she finds herself at the heart of a murder mystery and she has to figure out who to trust and what the heck is going on. I absolutely enjoyed every minute spent with Mrs. Blossom, as the narrator and most of the other characters call her. I thought only my mother preferred the Mrs. moniker, and since Mrs. B is only a year older than I am, this seemed pretty dated, but that's okay.

Visiting Paris with Muriel was fun--she goes shopping, visits art galleries, and dines in wonderful restaurants. I absolutely loved traveling down the Seine with her, stopping at Versailles, Giverny, Rouen, and Normandy. I especially enjoyed learning about the artist Joan Mitchell, whose home near Giverny Muriel makes a pilgrimage to.

The mystery itself is good and kept me guessing until all was revealed, which is the way I like it. 

I've only read one Tess Monaghan mystery, but now I am motivated to read more.

Dying in the Wool, by Frances Brody, is the first in the author's Kate Shackleton series, set in Yorkshire in the post WWI years. There are 11 books in the series, so I imagine they lead up to WWII. Anyway, I digress. This one involves a young widow, Kate, who lost her beloved in the Great War and is beginning a career as a private investigator, having proved to herself that she is quite good at finding lost people. She is commissioned by a friend to discover what happened to the friend's father, mill owner and local bigwig who disappeared following his arrest for attempted suicide. 

This was interesting primarily because of the setting and time period--the mystery wasn't riveting although it was well told. I have another in the series and plan to read that as well.

Speaking of Sheep

I was speaking of wool, which comes from sheep, so not too great a leap there!

My daughter just told me about an upcoming Hugh Jackman movie, The Sheep Detectives, which is based on the novel Three Bags Full, by Leonie Swann. Here's the trailer and it looks so much fun. I know what I want to do for Mother's Day!